RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/07/29/about-that-kamala-harris-ad/

Kamala Harris’ first presidential campaign ad focuses on “freedom.” This might be the most absurd political claim in our lifetimes. The Democratic Party is not interested in liberty. It is concerned with nothing more than expanding its power.

When Harris says in her ad “We choose freedom,” what liberties is she referring to? She never says. Because she can’t. She mentions a few examples – the freedom to “get ahead” and to “be safe from gun violence” – and both are meaningless.

The first “freedoms” is part of our American DNA. What has kept people from getting ahead is a federal, state, and local government framework, whose foundation was laid by Democrat Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, then reinforced in the mid-1960s by Democrat Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty. It is a leviathan that intrudes remorselessly into private matters and over-regulates what should be the free flow of commerce.

Can Harris or any of her defenders point to a single example in which she has fought for deregulation to help Americans “get ahead”? For authentic economic liberty? For individualism? For freedom from government?

The second is simply nonsensical in terms of liberty. True freedom is independence, unrestricted choice to live our lives as we wish without violating the freedom of others, the absence of government interference.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20818/us-elections-the-third-party-isnt-on-the-ticket

One of the dangers that democracies face is that of the machinery of government morphing into a political party with its own culture, traditions, methods and, needless to say, interests — above all that of self-perpetuation. Thus, the US has a third, invisible party, besides the Republicans and Democrats.

That Mandarinate is especially well-entrenched in the State Department, the Pentagon, the Treasury and, more importantly, the judiciary.

It also has well-established, at times incestuous, relations with lobbyists, single-issue activist groups, universities with their tenured academics, and think tanks with rotating doors to government departments and the media.

The Mandarinate maintains close ties with those unmovable, effectively tenured members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

Conspiracy theorists refer to this Mandarinate as “the deep state”.

However, what we are dealing with isn’t the product of a conspiracy by a cabal in a black chamber. It is the organic product of a system in which democracy is reduced to elections, and elections reduced to a beauty contest, just as a set of rituals is often marketed as a religion.

Winning an election is an art; governing is quite a different one.

[T]he closer the decision-making process is to those affected, the stronger a democracy is.

Rebalancing power between Washington and the states has been an issue since the end of the Civil War.

While the two candidates fire abuse at one another, the voter isn’t told what they actually mean to do about cracks in the structures of world order, the war in Ukraine, China as a threat or a rival, the exponential rise of anti-Semitic activities and the deepening of incivility in public life.

https://www.nysun.com/article/the-trump-harris-contrast?lctg=1474934676&recognized_

What a contrast. For those assessing the differences between the two presidential candidates in respect of Israel, feature Prime Minister Netanyahu’s separate meetings with, today, President Trump and, yesterday, Vice President Harris. The former received him warmly at his home in Florida and in the spirit of wartime allies. The latter met him in Washington, said some perfunctory words of support, and then lectured him for killing babies.

“We’ve had a good relationship,” Mr. Trump told reporters today at Mar-a-Lago, after warmly greeting Benjamin and Sarah Netnayahu. “I was very good to Israel, better than any President has ever been,” he said, listing his recognition of the Golan Heights and moving the American embassy to Jerusalem. “Maybe the best thing that I did for Israel,” he said, was walking out on the 2015 Iran deal. Under his maximum pressure policy, Iran was broke. 

Ms. Harris told reporters that she and Mr. Netanyahu had a meeting that was “frank and constructive” — diplomatic doublespeak for dodgy and troublesome. She read out a statement on Israel’s right to defend itself. She said the names of American hostages, and called Hamas a “brutal terror organization.” The rest was dedicated to berating Israel’s Gaza policies, on which she made her now-famous vow: “I will not be silent.”

Mr. Netanyahu, who felt sandbagged, was understandably furious. The Israelis concluded she’d prepared her remarks in advance, didn’t share them with the Israelis, and ignored the fact that Mr. Netanyahu had briefed her on Israel’s humanitarian efforts. Ms. Harris seemed to rely instead on reports by Hamas to anti-Israel human rights organizations, the press, and UN agencies. One such now debunked report claimed Gaza is on the verge of famine.